has anybody extended a 1970s chalet style house?

[ska]

and if so, how did it go? we are buying a chalet house in a fab area but it isn't right exactly for us and we want to make it bigger with an extra room upstairs and down. Any ideas?

Weve got a 60's chalet house - we added dormers upstairs which gave us about 6 - 8 feet "out" extra floor space.
Theyre very versatile houses.

My house has been extended with dormers but also sideways.

Works fine as long as you are careful about the position of the windows and lights.

that's what we're not sure about. There are dormers back and froint and we can only go backwards into the garden (side is too narrow). So how does it work? knock out the windows?

Build an extra bit that comes out at a right angle (not so pretty). The stair-well is pretty gloomy, though, and I don't see how that can be changed.

TBH although we have lots of space we're moving to get a house with a roof and two proper floors.

well this one has 4 bedrooms but they are smaller than what we have now. it is a nice house and i can see how to extend just downstairs but would like 5th bedroom so we can put up aged mil who need a bit of looking after. and it'd make it generally nicer.

now im being nosey - its not in herts is it?

We've got a 60's one and are hopefully going to extend it off the front of the house. There is a small dormer in the middle of the roof that someone added which will probably come out. Because the roof is quite steep we don't need to go out very far to gain a fair bit of extra space upstairs, or so the architect told me.

If we can afford to do a 10 x 14ft extension it will apparently give us an extra few feet on the kitchen diner thing, a utility room, possibly a new downstairs toilet, extra bedroom & ensuite upstairs and will get rid of the tunnel effect that you currently have going up the stairs. Oh and it will give us much needed cupboards on the landing. The architect reckons it will cost about £30k to do it. Not sure we can afford to do the whole thing so might have to scale it down. But my rambling point is that it is definitely worth getting a couple of architects to have a look as they can come up with things you may not have thought of.

justme, no in Beds. Where are you?

chocolateteapot - that sounds very good - we would like something similar i think - £30 sounds very cheap - where are you? A few years ago we extended our current house and it was £60k and I can't afford that much this time. we just need a bit better arrnagement downstairs to give me an 'office' space, a utility room would be great and a 5th bedroom make me over the moon so i don't have to throw out dd1 when mil comes to stay (often now she is frail). but the garden is huge so going out the back makes sense. did wonder about cnverting the garage instead but it is really ramshackle so would probably need to come down!
don't suppose your architects were in Beds?

Does it have a garage you could convert, ska?
Or a garden big enough to take one of those home offices?

Oops, you answered both questions. I have been thinking of how else to extend instead of moving but don't think it will work.

i thunk a home office in the garden would make sense but i'd rather spend money at the moment on making the house work. i can work on my laptop anywhere really.

We extended a chalet-style type, and turned a cupboard into another bedroom. We later bought a gorgeous extended chalet house. We'd watched the extension being built, never dreaming we'd live there one day! The owners turned the garage into a double and also extended backwards then built another floor over all that, making a second lounge downstairs and a huge bedroom (21ftx16ft) upstairs.

suedonin, please explain how that extension worked not sure i understand. did they make the garage into adouble garage and then build over that? or what - sounds perfect for us - wonder how much it cost? talking to an architect tomorrow

I dont know if this link will help you??

house

Its a house that we recently looked around but the area isn't quite right for us but it has been beautifully extended.

The first picture is actually the view from the back (there isn't any photos of the front on there.) The floor plans might help too. The lounge, mo st of the kitchen and the conservatory are the extension

Good Luck

We are in Dorset. The architect said as a rough rule of thumb it works out at £1000 per square meter, times 2 if you are doing a two storey extension. We wouldn't need to do much to the layout downstairs so that would keep costs down , then upstairs it is extending out a box room.

I am trying to be patient waiting for some plans to be drawn up, patient doesn't come naturally to me !

elfsmummy, what a lovely house! i wnat it! this is the kind of thing we'd like but it lookds pricely. i like the way they have done it though. my worry is the dormer windows don't give much ability to extend the house outwards so maybe we will stick toa one storey and put the kids in the sittingroom when mil comes to saty! and as my dh says, they'll leave home soon enough

chocolateteapot, we were told that too but my dh says to watch out for the extras, inc deorating/finishing which put up our costs last time.

Ska, with our house, the former owners added a second garage at the side of the attached single garage. They also pushed out at the back to bring it level with the main house. That made the 'garden' lounge, with doors to the patio. Then they put a roof on top and built a bedroom within it, with skylight windows.

If you look at the link Elfsmummy gave, that's not disimilar. Imagine you're looking at the front of the house, then where the porch/conservatory seems to be, on the left, that's where our double garage was. Again, imagine that the little bit of roof you see on the left of the pic extends right over the double garage and there you have it.

Do talk to an architect, though. They can come up with ideas you'd never have dreamt of. Good luck!

thanks have phoned one and he will meet me at the house next week to have a chat through about it all. must say my brain is about stuck now!